The Smartest American

According to Prof. Silliman, C.S. Peirce was the smartest person to ever have lived in the U.S. Maybe the smartest philosopher. We've had some pristine writers. This is excerpted from Peirce's essay "The Red and the Black":
 "[L]ogicality inexorably requires that our interests shall not be limited. They must not stop at our own fate, but must embrace the whole community. This community, again, must not be limited, but must extend to all ages of beings with whom we can come into immediate or mediate intellectual relation.... Logic is rooted in the social principle.
   To be logical men should not be selfish; and, in point of fact, they are not so selfish as they are thought. The willful prosecution of one's desires is a different thing from selfishness....
   Now, it is not necessary for logicality that a man should himself be capable of the heroism of self-sacrifice.... So far as he thus refers his inferences to that standard, he becomes identified with such a mind."
  
This is a fun part of the essay where Peirce diverts from talking about his logical example of red and black cards. The last parts about the community and selfishness interest me the most. I think they're decent principles for governing a logical society but they wouldn't work ultimately. The selfishness I believe inherent, and while subvertable often blinding, would not be conducive to logical thought. I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts on his proposition that heroism of self-sacrifice isn't necessary for logicality. I'm guessing that that's the extreme end of selflessness and isn't necessary for a logical society. But if humans shouldn't be selfish, shouldn't they be totally selfless. There are some problems here.

Musings on the Pretend Theory

“When one is pretending the entire body revolts”- Anais Nin


In pretending, our bodies do kind of revolt, but I believe that this is when we are forcing ourselves to pretend. We are naturally pretending creatures and lying creatures and pretend in order to better ourselves and to find recreation. When I pretended as a little kid to be fighting with my friends, I think it very well could have been a reflection of what was happening over in Iraq and pretending, for children, is a way of coping. For adults and adolescents, it is very different and forms and it hurts us so much that our bodies must revolt.

Kendall Question 2

Is it worthwhile to acknowledge that one is pretending to feel certain emotions about a narrative work or is it better to just feel the “pretend” human emotion and enjoy the work? Is it better living in the darkness about this particular human phenomenon?

I do not think it is worthwhile to think this way but I think that it is important to think about the quality work through literature, music, art, and film. There is good art and bad art, of course, and I think it is more important to think about and analyze the good art which has meaning to human beings. Human beings search for meaning and for knowledge and I believe that they can find that from analysis of good art. Even watching a film for the umpteenth time, one can still feel emotion and while that may be pretending, there is something to be gained from this imaginary emotion, a glimpse into what it really feels like.

I admire when people simply enjoy a great work of literature or a magnificent piece of art, but I think that there is something more to think about with especially profound ideas in literature.

Kendall Question 1

How does one apply Kendall’s “pretend theory” to music and visual art?

These two are not, at first, apparent as narrative art-forms and as artists and musician created art in the 20th century, visual art and music have lost, almost completely, their narrative structure. In a van Gogh painting, there is a story and in a jazz song, there is also a story. But we begin to lose those narratives all too quickly. Paintings become abstract and music becomes extremely experimental and I do not think that it is so easy to characterize music and art in the postmodern world.

So, do we "pretend" with these kinds of works? No, I do not think so. We do not pretend, we simply conceptualize and accept what we see, and we accept the emotions. I see this as the biggest flaw in the "pretend theory" in making music and art narrable. 

Answer to Nicole's Question

Think back to the last time you played make-believe. Compare it to reading a book or enjoying some other narrative art-form. Are they completely the same? What are some similarities? Differences?


The last time I came remember playing make-believe is when I had duels or massive battles with my friends using toy lightsabers or plastic guns. I remember always getting quite a lot of adrenaline from running around the yard and having to fight for my life, since I was usually the one who died first. This form of make-believe was based more or less off of Star Wars and action movies to which America is inured. However, on the turn side, I have read books and seen films depicting violence in such a way that frightens and unhinges my soul. There is a lot more attached to the deaths of soldiers in literature and artistic film. For example, though I have not read War and Peace, I still can see the deterioration of the soldiers' minds and the country's former glory. I never felt anything of the such while playing these backyard games. I never thought about how what I was doing was an ironic juxtaposition to a terrifying war-like nation into which I was being raised and would have to face.


This backyard play-battle is a simulation of what war would be like and it is sick to understand how we are being raised on war and violence only to go away to war because we believe it is right for our country. The biggest difference is that this is even less real than reading about war in a novel or in a movie because in good literature and film, one can see how a director or writer juxtaposes his or her film or novel to the real world and human beings' behavior.This would never be achieved with the simple toiling of children--we cannot even begin to understand what a horribly war-mongering race of people we are even as we fight and simulate backyard battles over and over again, rising up again as some strange, undead product of our battlling America.

Art Auction

Here is the auction which Professor Johnson brought up in class on Wednesday. It is interesting to see how much these paintings go for.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/arts/04iht-melikian04.html?_r=2&smid=tu-share

Musings on Imagination

“Conversation about the weather is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” --Oscar Wilde


It was also said about the filmmaker Akira Kurosawa that he never talked about the weather but simply worked and worked on scripts and ideas for more films. But I believe that all creative individuals are like this because I am also like this. I do not like to focus on the mundane details of life. Of course, the weather can be interesting, but I am sure Wilde is talking about your run-of-the-mill meteorologist report which is dull and only for practical value. I believe in talking about imaginative ideas which will entertain my ideas for novels and poems. Imagination is important in order to avoid the mundane and for those who do not have so much hope in their lives because now they can imagine something better for themselves instead of the depressing ideas that filled their mind.


However, this entertains a romantic notion which I am not too fond of, and I do not believe in: that we can imagine things and they will be better. Sometimes things are not so simple.